Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a screen update method and system, and more particularly, to a screen update method and system, in which two sorts of images are generated at a different update period by methods different from each other and the two images are composed to update a screen.
Discussion of the Background
The present invention relates to a screen update method and system, and more particularly, to a screen update method and system, in which two sorts of images are generated at a different update period by methods different from each other and the two images are composed to update a screen.
The real-time rendering is updating a screen by generating image from image resource data in real time. Generally, the real-time rendering means that an image is updated at an update speed not less than 15 [frames/second] such that a user looking at the image senses interactivity. Particularly, there are many cases in a network game service that a game screen having a rapid update speed of 30 [frames/second] in order to provide a natural game screen to a gamer.
However, in case that a three-dimensional image is rendered in real time, and particularly, a three-dimensional image is rendered in real time at a high update speed in a game screen, since not only the amount of image resource data to be processed in unit time is large but also the amount of computation processed by a graphic processing unit (GPU) is sharply increased, a method of keeping an update speed of 30 [frames/second] is greatly required.
However, in case that an image forming a game screen is generated, a process of generating the image can be divided into various steps and there exists not only a case in which each of the steps is performed in time series but also each of the step is performed in parallel.
In case that a process of generating an image is formed of Step A, Step B, and Step C and Step B is not performed till Step A is completed but Step C is performed in parallel regardless of Step A or Step C, Step C is performed in a short time because the amount of computation is not great but the image may be not generated because Step A is not completed. Namely, Step A and Step B determine the update speed of the image.
For example, in a 3D Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) in which a plurality of garners access via network and game, a process of updating a 3D object such as the movement of a player character is included in a step having a large amount of computation, such as Step A and a process of displaying the content of a chat text inputted by a gamer on a screen is included in a step having a small amount of computation and rapidly processed by a video processor, such as Step C.
In this case, since the movement of the player character and the content of the chat text are displayed in “one image”, if Step C for displaying the content of the chat text is rapidly processed and completed, the content of the chat text is not updated till Step A for displaying the movement of the player character is completed.
Accordingly, in case that the real-time rendering is not normally processed and a lack phenomenon occurs because a bottleneck phenomenon occurs or the amount of computation for the real-time rendering is rapidly increased, though Step C is completed, an unnatural game screen, even a freeze picture, is provided to a gamer due to a delay of Step A.